Senior Legal Counsel

About the role

As the first in-house Legal Counsel, you will lead the legal work on licensing and strategic partnership deals from term sheet to signing. You will serve as a trusted legal partner to the CEO, founders, and leadership team, covering IP, patents, operational contracts, data, AI, compliance, and corporate matters. This role offers the opportunity to shape legal processes at a fast-growing drug invention company.

Responsibilities

• Lead the legal work on licensing and collaboration deals, drafting and negotiating agreements from term sheet to signing.
• Work with BD, Finance and Leadership to turn commercial goals into contract terms, while protecting AQEMIA's platform and other programs.
• Support IP protection and patent-related decisions with scientific teams and external patent counsel.
• Draft and negotiate NDAs, MTAs, CRO, vendor, software and data agreements, including contractual questions on data use and AI.
• Address GDPR, regulatory, compliance and dispute-related matters with specialist support where needed, and support corporate and fundraising matters in coordination with Finance and external advisors.
• Own templates and approval workflows, highlight key contract obligations and deadlines to relevant teams, and manage external counsel.

Required skills

• Licensing
• Contract negotiation
• IP law
• Patent law
• Life sciences law
• Corporate law
• GDPR
• Compliance

Nice to have

• TechBio
• AI law
• Data rights
• Business development
• French

Qualifications

• Law degree or equivalent professional legal qualification
• 5+ years of legal experience, including time at a law firm in a life sciences practice

About the Company

AQEMIA is a drug invention company dedicated to creating entirely new medicines to address major unmet medical needs. The company uses a proprietary molecule-invention platform that combines physics-based modeling, statistical mechanics, and generative AI to design novel drug candidates.